A couple years ago a friend sent me the following e-mail. It asked whether you would you consider a product that:
• Has no owners manual
• Cannot be returned
• Is extremely expensive
• Has no warranty
• Is prone to breakdowns
• Requires maintenance 24 hours a day for the first year of ownership
• Causes physical and emotional pain
• Consumes household resources
• Expands in size more than 600 percent
• Leaks
Would anyone consider buying this twice? Three times? More?

Here is a typical scenario when a couple decides to have a child. During the pregnancy, the parents-to-be and grandparents-to-be have a lot of time to imagine what the new baby will be like. The father may want a male sports star, while the mother may want a female CEO. And, one set of grandparents may wish for a ballerina, while the other hopes for a doctor. In the end, however, everyone wants the child to be healthy, attractive and bright. Inevitably, the newborn – once it has a chance to grow and develop – will not match up exactly to any of their expectations.

Therefore, those unmet expectations – especially for the new parents – pose the first big emotional challenge. They must “bury” the fantasized picture they carried in their minds, and accept the child that is there. I say “bury,” because it is a real loss; the parents must go through a mourning process and put the old image to rest before they can move on with their child. Those who can successfully do this can then nurture and grow their child’s strengths, and guide them in a positive way into the future. Those who can’t, push their child in a direction that isn’t necessarily the way that is most suitable for the child.

In 1954, Stella Chess, M.D., a New York child psychiatrist, started a longitudinal study of individual styles of behavior of children. Chess discovered three broad categories of temperament “the easy child,” “the difficult child,” and “the slow to warm up child.” She found that the way the mother’s temperament and child’s temperament come together will determine if there is a good or poor fit between them. She only talked about this in relation to the mother-child relationship, but it holds true for the father-child relationship too. So, the second big challenge for the parents is to understand and accept the child and his or her temperaments as it is, and work with it, not fight against it.

Parenting is a full-time job. Parenting is a very hard job. But when your child looks at you, smiles, and says “I love you!” it’s all worth it.

In case you were wondering, I purchased that product three times, and I was never sorry I did it.

Dr. Joel L. Schwartz is a recently retired child and adult psychiatrist and former chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Abington Memorial Hospital. He is a professional speaker and author of Noses Are Red, a manual for parents on how to improve your child’s sense of humor. www.stresslessshrink.com.